Recovering policeman

"James Holland has heard confessions from many, many murderers. But now one is telling the Texas Ranger he's committed 93 murders himself, making him perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. The race is on to identify all of the 93 women Samuel Little says he murdered, while the 79-year-old remains alive and continues to cooperate.

Information Holland has gathered from Little has led to 50 cold case murders being solved."

The ex-bobby in me is delighted that crimes have been detected, and families given a degree of closure; however, the temptation in police forces to write off a decades-old cold case by pinning it on Little must be strong. Let's hope that the attributions are rigorously scrutinised.

...unless everyone's having a bad day and accidentally just wound the perp.

I'd have thought pure nitrogen or carbon monoxide in a gas chamber would be fairly humane. No gasping for breath, no pain, just drifting away until the ECG says it's over. No mess, no fuss, easily administered, cheap to obtain.

Not the sharpest tool in the shed. It reminds me of how Dennis Rader was caught. He asked the police 'can floppy disks be traced?'. The police replied 'no'. They were lying.

Rader was genuinely shocked that he was arrested. “I need to ask you, how come you lied to me? How come you lied to me?” Rader asked police Lt. Ken Landwehr at the start of his interrogation. Landwehr replied, “Because I was trying to catch you.”

Disciple of Marduk

I'd have thought pure nitrogen or carbon monoxide in a gas chamber would be fairly humane. No gasping for breath, no pain, just drifting away until the ECG says it's over. No mess, no fuss, easily administered, cheap to obtain.

Lethal injection promised to be more humane than the electric chair and gas chamber – but failed, with many prisoners suffering extreme agony for hours. Now some states are trialling nitrogen inhalation.

This is a very interesting article, especially the sections about why sedation is necessary (to protect onlookers from the disturbing sight of prisoners writing and moaning in agony) and why it's hard to achieve (because some drug companies refuse to supply them for this purpose.)

There was also a rather plodding documentary doing the rounds a few years back - oddly boring, given the fascinating, and infuriating, nature of the Quick/Bergwall story. I've mentioned it - and Hannes Råstam's book on the case - a few times in the past; most recently on this very thread a couple of years ago (here #535).

I still wonder how many of the investigations into the over thirty real murders attributed to Bergwall have been irredeemably undermined.

And I like to roam the land

I don't think I've seen her on any list of historical serial killers but she seems to have been a real person and fits the bill, though I'm not sure if she had a personal hand in the deaths ascribed to her.

Of course history is written by the victors. Her partner was given the posthumous title 'King Zhou of Shang', a 'Zhou' in this case being the piece of equestrian gear most often covered in horseshit. In histories written after their defeat, Zhou and Daji were accused of several atrocities - not least of all serving human meat pies to relatives of the deceased, Titus Andronicus style.

The pair were alleged to put on parties that would put Caligula to shame, featuring orgies and 'a lake of wine and a forest of meat', an expression still used in Chinese to signify gross excess.

Daji was a sadist and had several people murdered to satisfy her curiosity about human anatomy. Quote from Wikipedia:

Daji's greatest joy was to hear people cry in physical torment. Once, she saw a farmer walking barefoot on ice and ordered his feet cut off so she could study them and figure out why they were so resistant to low temperatures. On another occasion, she had a pregnant woman's belly cut open so it satisfied her curiosity to find out what happened inside. To verify an ancient saying that "a good man's heart has seven apertures", she even had the heart of the minister Bi Gan (King Zhou's uncle) dug out and subjected to her scrutiny.
Daji was best known for her invention of a method of torture known as Paolao (炮烙). A bronze cylinder covered with oil was heated like a furnace with charcoal beneath until its sides became extremely hot. The victim was made to walk on top of the slowly heating cylinder and he was forced to shift his feet to avoid the burning. The oily surface made it difficult for the victim to maintain his position and balance. If the victim fell into the charcoal below, he would be burnt to death. The victim was forced to dance and scream in agony before dying while the observing King Zhou and Daji would laugh in delight.

Why did she do all this? Well, you see, she was possessed by a fox spirit. I believe this accusation is fairly equivalent to those of erzebet bathory's vampirism or Gilles de rais' lycanthropy. A couple of thousand years later, a cult to her as a fox spirit arose. I wonder if this might have been a little like the cult of santa muerte in modern Mexico - evil deities offer more immediate pragmatic help than their more pious cousins. The fox cults were certainly suppressed by the ruling government.

There is a lot that's valid to what you say.
What irks me in this instance, is that although Milat died of a particularly nasty cancer, he died in a comfortable hospital bed afforded the best medical treatment the state could offer.
Meanwhile, his victims died in pain, tortured, alone and terrified. Sometimes the scales of justice don't balance even at the very end.

CyberPunk

To neighbours in her Christian community in Koodathayi, Jolly Joseph was a respected college professor and devout churchgoer whose faith apparently sustained her through a series of family tragedies.

But in a lurid drama that has transfixed India, Joseph is now suspected of poisoning her husband, his parents and three other relatives with soup, drinks and snacks laced with cyanide during a slow-motion 14-year murder spree. Large crowds gathered when the 47-year-old “black widow” appeared in court yesterday in the southern state of Kerala for a custody hearing. Joseph is alleged to be a cunning and patient serial killer who carried out what have inevitably become known as the “Jolly murders” to inherit her in-laws’ property and to pursue a new husband — who happened to be already married and the cousin of her poisoned spouse. ...

It has also emerged that although she left home each morning for 17 years apparently to make the one-hour commute to a prominent engineering college, her identity card as a lecturer was forged and she never worked there. Where she went and what she did each day is one of many mysteries about her. ...

I am a meat popsicle

It has also emerged that although she left home each morning for 17 years apparently to make the one-hour commute to a prominent engineering college, her identity card as a lecturer was forged and she never worked there. Where she went and what she did each day is one of many mysteries about her. ...

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...

To neighbours in her Christian community in Koodathayi, Jolly Joseph was a respected college professor and devout churchgoer whose faith apparently sustained her through a series of family tragedies. ...

For years, Jolly Joseph talked about how her house was cursed, neighbors said.

Her mother-in-law apparently died from a mysterious illness. At least three of her close relatives suffered fatal heart attacks, and her two-year-old niece choked to death on a piece of food.

But in October, Indian police presented a different theory. There was no mention of curses. Instead, they alleged, Joseph had poisoned each of them, one by one, and then covered up her crimes with lies that have only now started to unravel. ...